Looking back, it's been too far a road for me. It's as if I am stretched over the few years in a tangled state of mind.
After so many years, now I come again to the same stage -- admitting my own weaknesses to myself. What exactly does pride mean? While I live in the so-called expectations of the many people surrounding me, I can't stop wondering, are the expectations really there?
Brian May does inspire me on this part. His song 'Too much love will kill you' definitely been ringing around my ears since Form 4, but the lyrics only come to senses lately. A great musician and a physicist, he did make alot of harsh choices laid down on him now and then. The death of Freddie Mercury, his divorce and I will surely bet, his pursue of a doctorate study degree. And then an email from Wei Zhi crossed my mind. I shall paste it here for your reference:-
問題一：如果你知道有一個女人懷孕了，她已經生了八個小孩，其中有三個耳朵聾、兩個眼睛瞎、一個智能不足，
而這女人自己又有梅毒，請問，你會建議她墮胎嗎？
[Translation:-
Question 1: You knew that a woman is pregnant, and she had already given birth to 8 children. Three of the children are deaf, two of them blind and one of them mentally impaired. And at the same time the woman is diagnosed with syphilis. Honestly, will you suggest to her that she should abort her baby?]
問題二：現在要選舉一名領袖，而你這一票很關鍵。
下面是關於這三位候選人的一些事實：
候選人A：
跟一些不誠實的政客有往來，而且會咨詢占星學家。他有婚外情，是一個老煙槍，每天喝8─10杯的馬丁尼。
候選人B：
他過去有兩次被解雇的記錄，睡覺睡到中午才起來，大學時吸過鴉片，而且每天傍晚會喝一夸特的威士忌。
候選人C：
他是一位受勛的戰爭英雄，素食主義者，不抽煙，只偶爾喝一點啤酒。從沒有發生過婚外情。
[Translation:-
Question 2: Your country needs a new leader. And it is made known to you that your vote will decide who is going to be the one. The following is the information gathered about the 3 candidates. Based on the information given, please make your wisest choice:-
Candidate A:
He is known to have stayed in touch with a few dishonest politicians, and he even consults astrologists. He had affairs with woman outside although he is already married. He is addicted to cigarette and consumes 8 to 10 shots of Martini daily.
Candidate B:
He had been fired twice. Everyday he sleeps until noon. He used to be an opium addict when he was studying in university, and he drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.
Candidate C:
He is an honored war hero. He is a vegetarian and he does not smoke. Sometimes he will only drink a little beer and that's all. He never cheated on his wife.]
So from the two questions above, please make your choice. Then the answers are revealed:-
Candidate A is Franklin Roosevelt
Candidate B is Winston Churchill
Candidate C is Adolf Hitler
Have you chosen Hitler over the other two for your own country? So now what is your answer for the pregnant woman?
If you said you would suggest to that woman that she should undergo abortion, then the truth is you would have killed Beethoven. That woman is the mother of Beethoven.
The email concludes that:-
所以不要用既定的價值觀來思考事物。
我抓過朋友手中的報紙，原來真是一個測驗題，題目是《你的決定滅了誰》。
重要的是，不是我們在哪，而是我們要往哪走......
如果你知道往哪走，并且相信自己，世界會為你開出一條路.......
人的一切一切未必在掌控之中～
人是個難以捉摸的東西，就連自己也是一樣
[Translation:-
So, the moral of the story, don't use the social norms and values to judge or think over things.
I grab the newspaper of my friend's, and the two questions are really there. The title of the quiz is called: "Who has been erased by your decisions?"
The issue is, it doesn't matter where we are. What matters is where we are heading.
If you know where you are headed and you believe in yourself, the world will give you a road.
There are a lot of things which are not within the bounds of control of man. Man functions like water. Their thoughts hardly have a shape and it's hard to figure out what's on their mind. Sometimes, we don't even know what we are thinking.]
It's really impossible to choose sometimes. Yes, it's sometimes even harder to live up to everyone's expectations because we ourselves are incapable at the time being. I understand, if I fail you, it's not because of you that I felt deeply despair. Rather, the despair comes from me myself who failed myself.
There are a lot of things that I had been running away from and I wanna run away from. But at this moment, I have the road ahead of them carved on my mind. I guess there's where the senses come into shape and the despair takes its form within the void. Today I understand something, even where there is a road, if one has doubts, he will not complete the journey.
We do not let bygones be bygones. We co-exist with them. By acknowledging them, I know that I am growing weaker and weaker daily. Weaker in the sense of getting stronger. From the two questions above, I understand now that those people do not try hard to earn expectations. I think that, the qualities of those who are really successful do not lie in how much stronger they want to get by each passing day. Rather, they are trying to struggle harder each day to find out what is getting them weaker each day.
Roosevelt experienced WWII in a very unique way. He saw the glory of US ascending in his previous terms, having the notion that US is working its way towards the strongest nation on earth while the image is shattered by the Japanese's swift attack on Pearl Harbor. What makes him a strong leader later on? Personally I think it's his acknowledgment of the incapability of US army and at the same time trying to find out the weaknesses that had been the blind spot of US. If one does ponder about the way US fought WWII, you would find how careful the strategies had been devised. That could not have been possible without a humble mind.
Churchill is probably the star figure of WWII, but we also know that the British had been fighting a losing war since the beginning. Who could have endured on under that kind of situation, especially if you are the leader? If Churchill had been an elite since young, a person who keeps achieving the highest grades in school and is clean of drugs and booze, I don't think he will survive even a month holding that post. His past gives him the perfect chemistry: He knows that he is not doing enough every day. And he knows that he will make mistakes now and then. Therefore he listens. Therefore he shows his true self when he is motivating his people, because he is not God. He is just a normal person like every one of them, and moreover he is conscious that he might not be as good as any one who is fighting under his command.
So what comes next? Yes you know what it is. Just do it.
-
After so many years, now I come again to the same stage -- admitting my own weaknesses to myself. What exactly does pride mean? While I live in the so-called expectations of the many people surrounding me, I can't stop wondering, are the expectations really there?
Brian May does inspire me on this part. His song 'Too much love will kill you' definitely been ringing around my ears since Form 4, but the lyrics only come to senses lately. A great musician and a physicist, he did make alot of harsh choices laid down on him now and then. The death of Freddie Mercury, his divorce and I will surely bet, his pursue of a doctorate study degree. And then an email from Wei Zhi crossed my mind. I shall paste it here for your reference:-
問題一：如果你知道有一個女人懷孕了，她已經生了八個小孩，其中有三個耳朵聾、兩個眼睛瞎、一個智能不足，
而這女人自己又有梅毒，請問，你會建議她墮胎嗎？
[Translation:-
Question 1: You knew that a woman is pregnant, and she had already given birth to 8 children. Three of the children are deaf, two of them blind and one of them mentally impaired. And at the same time the woman is diagnosed with syphilis. Honestly, will you suggest to her that she should abort her baby?]
問題二：現在要選舉一名領袖，而你這一票很關鍵。
下面是關於這三位候選人的一些事實：
候選人A：
跟一些不誠實的政客有往來，而且會咨詢占星學家。他有婚外情，是一個老煙槍，每天喝8─10杯的馬丁尼。
候選人B：
他過去有兩次被解雇的記錄，睡覺睡到中午才起來，大學時吸過鴉片，而且每天傍晚會喝一夸特的威士忌。
候選人C：
他是一位受勛的戰爭英雄，素食主義者，不抽煙，只偶爾喝一點啤酒。從沒有發生過婚外情。
[Translation:-
Question 2: Your country needs a new leader. And it is made known to you that your vote will decide who is going to be the one. The following is the information gathered about the 3 candidates. Based on the information given, please make your wisest choice:-
Candidate A:
He is known to have stayed in touch with a few dishonest politicians, and he even consults astrologists. He had affairs with woman outside although he is already married. He is addicted to cigarette and consumes 8 to 10 shots of Martini daily.
Candidate B:
He had been fired twice. Everyday he sleeps until noon. He used to be an opium addict when he was studying in university, and he drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.
Candidate C:
He is an honored war hero. He is a vegetarian and he does not smoke. Sometimes he will only drink a little beer and that's all. He never cheated on his wife.]
So from the two questions above, please make your choice. Then the answers are revealed:-
Candidate A is Franklin Roosevelt
Candidate B is Winston Churchill
Candidate C is Adolf Hitler
Have you chosen Hitler over the other two for your own country? So now what is your answer for the pregnant woman?
If you said you would suggest to that woman that she should undergo abortion, then the truth is you would have killed Beethoven. That woman is the mother of Beethoven.
The email concludes that:-
所以不要用既定的價值觀來思考事物。
我抓過朋友手中的報紙，原來真是一個測驗題，題目是《你的決定滅了誰》。
重要的是，不是我們在哪，而是我們要往哪走......
如果你知道往哪走，并且相信自己，世界會為你開出一條路.......
人的一切一切未必在掌控之中～
人是個難以捉摸的東西，就連自己也是一樣
[Translation:-
So, the moral of the story, don't use the social norms and values to judge or think over things.
I grab the newspaper of my friend's, and the two questions are really there. The title of the quiz is called: "Who has been erased by your decisions?"
The issue is, it doesn't matter where we are. What matters is where we are heading.
If you know where you are headed and you believe in yourself, the world will give you a road.
There are a lot of things which are not within the bounds of control of man. Man functions like water. Their thoughts hardly have a shape and it's hard to figure out what's on their mind. Sometimes, we don't even know what we are thinking.]
It's really impossible to choose sometimes. Yes, it's sometimes even harder to live up to everyone's expectations because we ourselves are incapable at the time being. I understand, if I fail you, it's not because of you that I felt deeply despair. Rather, the despair comes from me myself who failed myself.
There are a lot of things that I had been running away from and I wanna run away from. But at this moment, I have the road ahead of them carved on my mind. I guess there's where the senses come into shape and the despair takes its form within the void. Today I understand something, even where there is a road, if one has doubts, he will not complete the journey.
We do not let bygones be bygones. We co-exist with them. By acknowledging them, I know that I am growing weaker and weaker daily. Weaker in the sense of getting stronger. From the two questions above, I understand now that those people do not try hard to earn expectations. I think that, the qualities of those who are really successful do not lie in how much stronger they want to get by each passing day. Rather, they are trying to struggle harder each day to find out what is getting them weaker each day.
Roosevelt experienced WWII in a very unique way. He saw the glory of US ascending in his previous terms, having the notion that US is working its way towards the strongest nation on earth while the image is shattered by the Japanese's swift attack on Pearl Harbor. What makes him a strong leader later on? Personally I think it's his acknowledgment of the incapability of US army and at the same time trying to find out the weaknesses that had been the blind spot of US. If one does ponder about the way US fought WWII, you would find how careful the strategies had been devised. That could not have been possible without a humble mind.
Churchill is probably the star figure of WWII, but we also know that the British had been fighting a losing war since the beginning. Who could have endured on under that kind of situation, especially if you are the leader? If Churchill had been an elite since young, a person who keeps achieving the highest grades in school and is clean of drugs and booze, I don't think he will survive even a month holding that post. His past gives him the perfect chemistry: He knows that he is not doing enough every day. And he knows that he will make mistakes now and then. Therefore he listens. Therefore he shows his true self when he is motivating his people, because he is not God. He is just a normal person like every one of them, and moreover he is conscious that he might not be as good as any one who is fighting under his command.
So what comes next? Yes you know what it is. Just do it.
-
